[env-trinity] Multiple TPUD outages over long weekend

[Tom Stokely]

http://www.trinityjournal.com/news/local/article_6b14a13c-9523-11e8-beca-673673d011a8.html

Multiple TPUD outages over long weekend
   
   - By AMY GITTELSOHN The Trinity Journal
 - 1 hr ago
 After several days of lengthy power outages Friday through Monday during the Carr fire siege, customers of the Trinity Public Utilities District should be seeing improved reliability, TPUD General Manager Paul Hauser said.“We’re now back on our normal supply,” Hauser said, although he added that “fires are unpredictable.”The power issues started when a high-voltage transmission line from the Keswick and Carr powerhouses to Trinity went out of commission due to the Carr fire. The Western Area Power Administration which provides TPUD its power went to a backup plan it had never tried at Trinity before – providing power to TPUD solely from the Trinity PowerPlant.Normally the Trinity PowerPlant is unmanned, operated remotely, but in this “islanding” situation operators were brought in from Western and the federal Bureau of Reclamation.Hauser likened it to having a giant extension cord from all the TPUD substations to the Trinity PowerPlant.There were multiple reasons for each failure, he said.On-site operators were needed to manage voltage and frequency, Hauser said, but they were ordered to evacuate Sunday night and that precipitated the third failure. They were escorted back in Monday morning, but it took time to bring the system back up.The possibility of getting power from PG&E from the coast was pursued, but “we couldn’t satisfy PG&E requirements for protection of their lines,” Hauser said.Without access to the high-voltage lines from outside the county, the generator at Trinity was “blackstarted” three times with a large diesel generator. Something that hadn’t been done at Trinity before.With the improved fire situation around the Carr and Keswick lines, the normal feed has been restored. “We have redundancy,” Hauser said. “Reliability should be dramatically better.”
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